Miyoo A30 vs. R36S: 2.8-Inch Micro Pocket vs. Full 3.5-Inch Dual-Stick Retro Handheld

Below, I break down how that 56% screen-area gap affects RPG dialogue, why many Miyoo A30 owners install community SpruceOS, how the Allwinner A33 compares with the Rockchip RK3326 inside our 2Bluebox R36S, and where the A30 still comes out ahead.

Miyoo A30 Review vs. R36S Display Math: Why 3.5 Inches Gives You 56% More Screen Area

Don't let the 0.7-inch diagonal gap fool you. Because display area scales by the square of the diagonal, the 3.5-inch 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99) provides 5.88 sq in of space versus 3.76 sq in on the Miyoo A30.

Anyone reading a Miyoo A30 review runs into the same comparison: Time Extension's Miyoo A30 review sums it up as a Game Boy Micro-like device with some rough edges. The RetroCatalog Miyoo A30 specification sheet lists a 2.8-inch 640x480 IPS panel in 4:3, the same resolution and shape as the 3.5-inch R36S screen, which leads many shoppers to assume the viewing experience is nearly the same.

Once you run the 4:3 geometry, though, the physical size difference is much larger than 0.7 inches suggests:

• 2.8-inch Miyoo A30 (4:3 active area): A 2.8-inch 4:3 rectangle measures 2.24 inches wide by 1.68 inches tall, giving you 3.76 square inches of display area inside a 127.5 x 57 x 16 mm, 115g horizontal body (RetroCatalog).
• 3.5-inch 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99, 4:3 active area): A 3.5-inch 4:3 rectangle measures 2.80 inches wide by 2.10 inches tall, giving you 5.88 square inches. That works out to (3.5 / 2.8)^2 = 1.5625, or 56.25% more surface area for every sprite, health bar, and dialogue box. You can see the panel up close in our R36S hands-on review and screen test.

Because both panels draw the same 640x480 pixels, the A30 packs them tighter (about 285 PPI versus roughly 229 PPI on the R36S). Each letter looks crisp on the A30, just 20% shorter and 20% narrower than the same letter on the R36S.

Table 1 compares the hardware inside our 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99) against the Miyoo A30 and generic marketplace R36S clones. For a wider look at the category, see our guide to the best pocket retro handheld consoles.

Table 1: 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99, 2bluebox.com) vs. Miyoo A30 vs. Generic Marketplace R36S Clone

"Tested on our unit" means we checked it on a device we own. "Manufacturer spec" means the maker states it and we haven't verified it ourselves. "Community reports" means players report it, and results can vary.

RPG Text Legibility, Dual Analog Sticks & Dual TF Slots in Daily Play

RPGs like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII were drawn for 1990s CRT TVs, so a 2.8-inch screen shrinks their dialogue text by 20% in each direction. The A30's single stick also leaves nothing spare for 3D cameras or the DS stylus.

Chrono Trigger is the game I got completely lost in on my first SNES, and its text boxes are exactly where a small screen shows its limits. If you're in your thirties or forties and want 15 quiet minutes in bed after the house goes dark, screen area matters far more than saving a few grams in your pocket:

• Reading RPG dialogue without squinting: Classic PS1 and SNES RPGs use dense bitmap fonts drawn for a living-room television. Spread across the 5.88-square-inch panel of the 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99), menu text, item descriptions, and mini-maps stay readable at a normal arm's length. On the 3.76-square-inch Miyoo A30, every letter renders at 80% of that height and width.
• Two clickable L3/R3 sticks vs. a single stick: The Miyoo A30 has one analog stick. On the 2Bluebox R36S, the right stick can handle 3D camera control in dual-analog PS1 games, the C-buttons in lighter N64 titles, and the touch-screen pointer in the DraStic Nintendo DS emulator.
• A real 3.5mm headphone jack vs. a USB-C dongle: Miyoo left the 3.5mm port off the A30 and packs a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter in the box instead, according to DROIX's Miyoo A30 review. The 2Bluebox R36S keeps a dedicated 3.5mm jack, so standard wired earbuds plug straight in on a flight or late at night.
• Two microSD slots vs. one: The R36S splits storage between a TF1-OS system slot and a TF2-GAME slot, so you can add a second card for extra games while the system card stays untouched. The A30 runs everything from a single card.

For a blunt owner's take, the original poster in this r/SBCGaming thread on the Miyoo A30 vs. the R36S argues the R36S is the better pick. That's one owner's opinion and harsher than I'd put it, but the screen, stick, and chip gaps in the tables above hold up on paper.

Use this four-step setup on the 2Bluebox R36S to get the sharpest text and cleanest controls for handheld RPGs:

1. Tap FN + Vol+ or Vol- during any game to set a comfortable backlight level for dark bedrooms or bright train windows.
2. Press FN + X inside RetroArch to open the RetroArch menu and set Settings -> Video -> Scaling -> Aspect Ratio to 4:3.
3. Hold FN + Tap R2 in 16-bit RPGs to toggle fast-forward through random battles, then tap FN + R1 to lock in a Save State.
4. Plug standard wired earbuds straight into the 3.5mm port for private stereo audio without an adapter.

Squinting at a 2.8-inch screen or spending a Saturday setting up custom firmware takes the fun out of a retro handheld. The 2Bluebox R36S Handheld ($79.99) gives you a 56% larger 4:3 IPS screen, two clickable L3/R3 sticks, ArkOS 2.0, and 12,805 unique playable games ready the moment you turn it on:

Allwinner A33 (Miyoo A30 SpruceOS) vs. Rockchip RK3326 (ArkOS 2.0): Chip, Firmware & Battery

The Miyoo A30 runs a 32-bit Allwinner A33 with 512MB RAM and performs best after you install community SpruceOS. The 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99) pairs a 64-bit RK3326 with 1GB of Dual-RAM DDR3L and ships with ArkOS 2.0 preinstalled.

Look beneath the shell of the Miyoo A30 on the RetroCatalog Miyoo A30 specification page and you'll find an older 32-bit tablet-class processor that explains both its performance ceiling and its software quirks:

• 32-bit Allwinner A33 + 512MB RAM on the Miyoo A30: The A33 pairs four 32-bit ARM Cortex-A7 cores (listed at 1.2 to 1.5GHz) with an older Mali-400 MP2 GPU (OpenGL ES 2.0) and 512MB of RAM. DROIX found PS1 runs well while PSP and Dreamcast disappointed even when overclocked, and raising the CPU clock to fix some arcade and SNES slowdowns costs battery life from the 2600mAh cell.
• Why many Miyoo A30 owners install SpruceOS: The Retro Handhelds Miyoo A30 setup guide describes the stock experience as "underwhelming to downright janky." The open-source SpruceOS project on GitHub, which its developers describe as a beautification and optimization of Miyoo's stock OS, is the popular fix, and DROIX saw N64 and PS1 run far smoother after the switch. Installing it means formatting a microSD card to FAT32 on a PC and copying the files over yourself (or running the project's installer).
• 64-bit Rockchip RK3326 + 1GB RAM + ArkOS 2.0 on the 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99): Our R36S runs four 64-bit ARM Cortex-A35 cores (1.5GHz), a Mali-G31 MP2 GPU (OpenGL ES 3.2), and 1GB of DDR3L RAM across two physical memory chips, backed by a removable 3200mAh battery. ArkOS 2.0, a Linux-based handheld OS that boots straight into the EmulationStation game menu, comes preinstalled; the community ArkOS R3XS GitHub Wiki covers its R35S and R36S builds.

I still pop open old SNES cartridge shells to check the PCB and scrub the brass pins with 99% isopropyl alcohol and a Q-tip, because what's on the board matters more than the label. On a handheld, the parts you can actually service tell the same story: the R36S has a removable 3200mAh battery and two microSD slots (TF1-OS and TF2-GAME), so your operating system and your games can live on separate cards once you add a second one.

If you'd rather have a vertical pocket handheld without analog sticks that still offers a 3.5-inch or high-PPI screen, read our Miyoo Mini Plus vs. R36S comparison and our TrimUI Brick vs. R36S compact handheld comparison.

Using a standard 5V USB-A charger and shutting down cleanly through the software menu keeps both the battery and your save files safe.

Pre-Loaded Game Library & Headphone Jack Convenience

For late-night or travel play, you want plug-in earbuds and a card that works on day one. The 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99, 2bluebox.com) has a 3.5mm jack and a public list of 12,805 unique games, which marketplace clones rarely offer.

Miyoo A30 listings on overseas marketplaces usually come either as a bare console or with a seller-loaded bundle card. Those bundle lists are rarely published, so you won't know which titles you're getting until the package arrives.

When I pulled the microSD card out of our R36S unit and checked the folder tree, the CPS2 and MAME folders were full of eight-character zip names like aburner and aerofgt that you can't decode at a glance. So we indexed all 15,768 files, filtered out duplicates and broken files, and published 12,805 unique playable games on our searchable 15,768 R36S games list so you can check your favorite titles before you buy.

Table 3 compares buying the 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99) from 2bluebox.com against importing a Miyoo A30 or gambling on an unbranded marketplace R36S clone.

Table 3: Buyer Reality Check: 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99) vs. Miyoo A30 Import vs. Unbranded Marketplace R36S Clone

Why the 2Bluebox R36S Is the Safer All-Around Pocket Handheld

Unless you only want a palm-sized second device for quick 2D sessions, the 2Bluebox R36S ($79.99) gives 56% more screen area, double the RAM, and two sticks. Skip it for TV play and pick the 2Bluebox Retro Game Stick 4K Pro ($59.98).

Match your gaming style to one of these four options before you order:

• Pick the 2Bluebox R36S Handheld ($79.99) if: You want a pocket console with a readable 3.5-inch 4:3 IPS screen, two clickable L3/R3 sticks for PlayStation 1 and selected lighter N64, Dreamcast, and PSP games, a built-in 3.5mm headphone jack, two microSD slots, and 12,805 unique playable games ready on day one. Skip it if you want to play on a TV, because its OTG port has no HDMI output.
• Pick the Miyoo A30 if: You already own a larger handheld and want an ultra-light 115g horizontal micro console with built-in Wi-Fi for short 8-bit and 16-bit sessions. You'll need to keep the USB-C audio adapter handy and be comfortable installing SpruceOS on a microSD card from your PC.
• Pick the 2Bluebox Retro Game Stick 4K Pro ($59.98) if: You want two-player couch co-op on a living-room TV. Neither pocket handheld can plug into a television, while our white HDMI stick (built on a SEGAM-M8-V5.0 board) plugs straight into your TV and ships with two white-and-black 2.4GHz wireless controllers plus 14,755 unique playable games (20,134 files) listed at /pages/all-games. Skip it if you want PS2 or GameCube games, or something to play on a flight.
• Pick the 2Bluebox Portable HDD Super Console 500GB ($64.99) if: You want PS2, GameCube, Wii, and heavier 3D PSP games running smoothly on a computer you already own. It boots Batocera Linux over USB 3.0 on a Windows (x86-64) PC or laptop, uses that machine's CPU and GPU, and carries 110,686 games listed at /pages/hdd-super-console-game-list. Skip it if you only own an Apple Silicon Mac or want to plug straight into a TV without a computer.

Whether you want a comfortable 3.5-inch pocket handheld for your commute or a plug-and-play HDMI console for family game night, both 2Bluebox consoles ship free with tracking on orders from $50 to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and the EU, and both include our 30-day replacement guarantee:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Conclusion

The Miyoo A30 is a charming nod to the Game Boy Micro, with built-in Wi-Fi and a 115g shell, if you only want a tiny second device for quick 2D games and don't mind installing SpruceOS on your own card. Once you settle in with an RPG, a PlayStation 1 classic, or a 3D game, though, a 2.8-inch screen with one stick, 512MB of RAM, and no headphone jack quickly feels cramped.

If you want one pocket handheld that keeps text easy on your eyes and works right out of the box, the 2Bluebox R36S Handheld ($79.99) gives you 56% more 4:3 screen area, a Dual-RAM RK3326 board (1GB DDR3L), two clickable L3/R3 thumbsticks, a built-in 3.5mm audio jack, and 12,805 unique playable games ready for tonight's session.

Check the game list, keep a 5V USB-A charger nearby, and Press Start.